Icarus Laughed Novels & Stories

Right after finishing a meeting, I opened a forum and saw a warning post. The location tag was our company. The title read: “Red flag! What a cheap company. Anyone who joins is a total sucker. They can’t even afford a decent coffee break.” The photo attached showed the expensive coffee and five-star desserts I had just asked my assistant to distribute to everyone. I frowned and tagged the entire group chat, asking if anyone had suggestions about the afternoon tea. A Gen-Z intern who had just joined, Julian Hayes, instantly replied with a voice message: “Boss, no offense, but these assembly-line desserts are full of trans fats. Nobody would eat them.” “A truly humane company hires a Michelin chef to cook and slice everything fresh on site. That’s what real respect for employees looks like.” I laughed in disbelief. Our company’s daily coffee break budget was thirty dollars per person—already considered top-tier in the industry. So I replied, “Since it’s impossible to satisfy everyone’s taste, we’ll cancel afternoon tea from now on and convert the budget into cash for everyone instead.” Less than five minutes later, that post was updated: “Guys, can you believe this? I made a perfectly reasonable suggestion and the lame boss immediately canceled the whole coffee break perk! This is the true face of corporate greed—can’t handle even a little bit of honesty!”

The day Adrian Knight clinched a contract with our biggest client, I "accidentally" tipped a bottle of ink across the paperwork, voiding it on the spot. Because of that single blot, the project landed in Alex Lewis’s lap, and he won Chairman Henry Carter’s favor almost overnight, moving into the Carter mansion as their future son-in-law and watching his net worth rocket into eight figures. Adrian never blamed me. He just laughed that he’d never been executive material anyway and happily brought me home as his bride. Everyone whispered that, if not for my meddling, Adrian would already be sitting in the Carter family’s executive suite instead of scraping by in an ordinary life with me. Only I knew the truth: stopping him from signing that contract had saved his life. When Adrian learned I was pregnant, he locked me in the basement, fingers digging into my throat. "If it hadn’t been for you," he snarled, "I’d be Henry Carter’s son-in-law by now. You’re the reason I lost Rachel, the princess of the Carter family." That’s when I realized he’d been nursing this grudge for years. After he killed me, I woke up, reborn on the very day Adrian first reached for that fatal contract. This time, I’ll make sure Adrian Knight gets exactly what he wants.

On our wedding anniversary, my CEO husband, Michael Grant, invited me to watch the ocean with him. Tragically, a typhoon hit. I stood there in the raging wind and rain for over two hours, and he never showed up. In the end, all I got was a text that he was suddenly going on a business trip and couldn’t make it. Right after that, his intern, Nora Blake, posted a video on her social feed. It showed my usually pampered husband barefoot while helping fishermen haul crates of seafood. Her caption read: "Our hardworking CEO loves to get his hands dirty!" I laughed and commented: "Diligent and enduring—a true role model for us all." The company Slack channel instantly exploded. Everyone was betting on whether I’d finally blow up this time. Michael called me, his voice tight with fury, "Lauren West! What the heck did you mean by posting that comment? Are you trying to humiliate Nora in public? "It was a typhoon. I helped her family move some fish. What’s the big deal? You’re such a pampered little princess who has no idea how hard life really is. Delete that comment now. I’ll take you to the coast another day." Disgust churned in me. I replied, "Let a man who’s already rolled in the mud take me to the ocean? Forget it." Yes. Michael was now tainted, and I didn’t want him anymore.

Seven days before our bonding ceremony, I overheard my mate joking with his friends. He had already moved our bonding from the snowfield altar I chose to the coastside grounds because Lyra liked the sea. But that was not the part that made them fall silent. What shocked them was that he had also prepared a Luna crown for her. One of them laughed nervously. “Changing the bonding site is one thing. Maybe Serena will forgive that. But the Luna crown? That’s different. For a woman, that crown means everything. Aren’t you afraid she’ll leave?” My mate only smiled, calm and certain. “It’s just a crown. Serena won’t care.” “She loves me. When has she ever refused me anything? She’s not going to throw a tantrum over something this small.” And for the first time, I realized he was right about one thing. I had loved him enough to forgive too much. But not anymore. So when the bonding day came and he stood at the coastside grounds calling for me again and again, I only watched the snow fall outside the window and thought: He was right. I did not make a scene. I did not demand an explanation. I just walked away without a word. He thought that meant it was nothing. He would only understand later that a woman who leaves in silence is not giving you another chance—she is leaving you with nothing but regret.

Five years ago, my family died in a car crash. My parents. My adopted sister, Liz. Everyone but me. They left behind grief, an empty house, and a debt so large it swallowed my life. When the collectors came, I turned to the only person I had left—my husband, Adrian. He told me he had cut ties with his own family to marry me and had nothing left. I believed him. For five years, I worked every job I could find, paid every dollar I earned, and told myself love was worth the suffering. When the balance dropped to its final $18,000, I signed up for a paid drug trial at a private clinic. They handed me a waiver, warned me about possible delayed reactions, and promised fast money if I swallowed the experimental dose. I thought it would buy us a new beginning. Instead, I came home early and heard Adrian on the phone. “Let Liz use the card. Evelyn still doesn’t know. She took away Liz’s money five years ago, so she has to earn every dollar back herself.” Then he laughed softly. “One more year, and her punishment is over.” That was how I learned the dead were alive. The debt was fake. My husband had never been poor. And the life I had fought so hard to survive was only a sentence they had given me.

Ashley was once the strongest warrior, the most gifted healer, and the chosen Luna. Her future was set… until the night she vanished. Kidnapped by rogues and left to die, Ashley reached out to her mate, Alpha Jace, only to be met with a cold “contact later” as a response. The rogues laughed at her. “Even your Alpha doesn’t care if you live or die.” Alone and wounded, Ashley escaped but lost her wolf, Amy, in the process. When she was in need of his help, Jace was attending to Carina, his childhood friend. Ashley felt hurt and betrayed once she realized this and made the painful decision to reject Jace and sever their bond. But Jace refused to let her go and proposed an enticing offer. Just when Ashley tries to believe him, she uncovered the truth—she was never the mate. She was a stand-in. A shield to protect Carina. As the final straw, Ashley turned the tables. She blackmailed Jace’s beta, Lucas, when she discovers his involvement with the rogues and forced him to help her escape. But at the edge of her freedom, Jace is waiting and the final blow is delivered: losing her wolf was part of their plan. As Jace completed his plan by marking her as his forever, Ashley braced for the end. Until the Lycan King arrived. He doesn’t come to save her. He comes to claim her. But why would the most powerful man want a broken substitute? And what will happen when Ashley discovers she was never a pawn—she was the prize?

On my way home, I saved a witch from a rogue attack. She thanked me with a small vial of potion, which would let me hear other people’s thoughts. That night, at the pack banquet, I heard my mate’s thoughts. ‘Serena just bought the sexiest lingerie. I need to find some excuse to ditch Aurora tonight.’ A second voice cut in, a woman’s. ‘She has no idea every time Lucian says he’s working late, he’s with me. We’ve slept together so many times now.’ ‘Once I’m pregnant with Lucian’s child, he’ll have every reason to break the mate bond with her. And when he becomes Alpha, I’ll be the Luna.’ I almost laughed out loud. What Serena didn’t know was that Lucian was the Alpha’s illegitimate son. He’d never inherit anything. I was already running through how to make them pay when another voice broke through. It came from the man standing next to Serena, the shabby boyfriend everyone in this pack looked down on. ‘How am I supposed to tell her I’m the heir to the Alpha King?’ My eyes went wide. I kept my face blank and walked straight up to him. “Hey. Mind if I get your number?”

Eight months pregnant, I had every bank card frozen by my husband’s female secretary. Over the phone, she laughed coldly and said, “From now on, every cent you spend needs my approval. Jack works too hard to waste his money on a useless woman who only knows how to shop.” That same day, I was rushed to the hospital with contractions. Every card I tried was declined. And as if that wasn’t enough, she had also moved my parents out of their private senior suite and into the cheapest room available. Her reason? Two ordinary old people had no right to waste Jack’s money. I laughed. She had no idea those “ordinary old people” were the Don and Donna of the Bellandi family, the couple who had controlled Italy’s underworld for decades. She had no idea Jack’s company, his reputation, his fortune—everything he owned—had come from the Bellandi family. My parents had already planned to retire completely after my child was born. They were going to hand the entire family over to me. And to Jack. Too bad. Jack had allowed her to humiliate the only real power he would ever have the chance to stand beside. Three days later, Jack held a welcome party for his mysterious investor. In front of everyone, his secretary dialed the investor’s number. The next second, my phone rang.

As Gamma of the Creed Pack, I'd held the Northern Border alone for three full years. Every time I called in to ask when I could come home, my mate — the Alpha of Creed — picked up the phone himself. He told me the rogues weren't cleared. He told me the rival packs were still circling. He said, "Nora. One more year. Once we have completely eliminated all our enemies, I will hold the grandest mating ceremony for you. I swear it on the Moon." I believed him. When I dragged myself out of a pile of dead rogues with a silver arrowhead still lodged an inch from my heart, bleeding too fast for a medevac, my warriors had to shift and run me back in wolf form all the way to Creed territory. The moment we crossed the border, I saw fairy lights strung from every streetlamp along the road to the pack house. Pack wolves on the sidewalks were talking loud, smiling at each other. "The Alpha's Mating Ceremony is tonight. He's taking the Elder's daughter as Luna. Three years of peace on the border. It's a good time to be Creed." I coughed dark blood into the fur on the back of my warrior's neck and laughed, short and bitter. He hadn't needed me holding the border. He just hadn't wanted me home.

Esme believed in this saying for as long as she could remember. These words gave her the strength and courage to live each day as it came until she eventually became tired of making those lemonades and wished for something else. Something—different. But that only seemed wishful thinking. Born as a noble and made an orphan after a rogue attack, Esme became the unwanted pack member of NightCrawler Pack. The once daughter of an alpha became nothing but a slave who answers to the new alpha’s family’ every beck and call. The pack that had once adored her now ridiculed her and laughed at her mistreatment and misery. They seemed to have forgotten how her family had fought for the safety of the pack and the kingdom and even lost their lives for them. But in all this, Esme remained silent. Silently enduring and hoping that one day, her knight in shining armor would come and rescue her. He will show up one day and take her away from the once happy place that has now become her hell. When that day eventually came, she was rejected without a second thought, and she watched as her world came crashing. Hard. Her heart caved in and lost all hope of ever finding happiness again. Or even leaving the pack. After all, what could a wolfless shifter do? Amidst her misery, a ray of light appeared. She was blessed with a second chance, mate. One whose outstretched hand she was hesitant to take, especially after knowing who he was.